Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  But it was only a moment, and the big brotherly grasp of my new relation’s hand, the cordial nephewly grip, and affectionate niecely kiss gave me a new and unexpected sense of the joys of homecoming.

  These were people, real people, as warm and kind and cheery as people ever were; and they greeted me with evident good will. It was “Uncle John” in no time, and Hallie in especial seized upon me as her own.

  “I know mother’s got you all broken in by this time,” she said. “And that you are prepared for all manner of amazing disclosures. But Mother never told us how handsome you are, Uncle John!”

  “In vain is the net spread in sight of any bird,” murmured young Jerrold mischievously.

  “Don’t listen to him, Uncle! I am perfectly sincere,” she protested, leaning over to hug her mother again, and turning back to me with a confiding smile.

  “Why should I doubt such evident good judgment?” said I. And she slipped her hand in mine and squeezed it. Nellie sat there, looking as proud and happy and matronly and motherly as anybody could, and a great weight rolled off my heart. Some things were left of my old world anyway.

  We talked gaily and excitedly on our way of immediate plans, rolling smoothly along broad, open streets. A temporary conclusion was to stop at Hallie’s apartment for the time being; and I was conscious of a distinct sense of loss to think of my new-found niece being already married.

  “How still it is!” I presently observed. “Is that because it is afternoon, too?”

  “Oh, no,” they assured me. “We aren’t as noisy as we used to be.”

  “These children don’t know anything about what we used to have to put up with,” said Owen. “They never were in New York while it was screaming. You see, there are no horses; all surface vehicles are rubber-tired; the minor delivery is pneumatic, and the freight all goes underneath — on those silent monorails.”

  The great city spread about us, clean as a floor, quiet as a country town by comparison with what I remembered; yet full of the stir and murmur of moving crowds. Everyone we passed or met looked happy and prosperous, and even my inexperienced eye caught a difference in costuming.

  “There’s no masquerade on, is there?” I asked.

  “Oh, no — we all wear what we please, that’s all. Don’t you like it?” Nellie asked.

  Generally there appeared the trim short skirt I had noticed as so appropriate on ship-board; here and there a sort of Florentine gown, long, richly damasked; sometimes a Greekish flow of drapery; the men mostly knickerbockered. I couldn’t deny that it was pleasant to the eye, but it worried me a little none the less.

  “There’s no hurry, John,” said Nellie, always unobtrusively watching me. “Some things you’ll just have to get used to.”

  “Before I wholly accept this sudden new brother,” I presently suggested, “I’d like to know his name.”

  “Montrose — Owen Montrose, at your service,” he said, bowing his fine head. “Ateo-i Jerrold Montrose — and Hallie Robertson!”

  “Dear, dear!” I protested. So it’s come to that, has it?”

  “It’s come to that — and we still love each other!” Nellie cheerfully agreed. “But it isn’t final. There’s a strong movement on foot to drop hereditary names altogether.”

  I groaned. “In the name of common humanity, don’t tell me anything worse than you have now!”

  Hallie’s apartment was in a big building, far uptown, overlooking the Hudson

  “I have to live in town nine months of the year, you see, Uncle, on account of my work,” she explained rather apologetically.

  “Hallie’s an official — and awfully proud of it,” her brother whispered very loudly.

  “Jerrold’s only a musician — and pretends to be proud of it!” she retorted. Whereat he forcibly held and kissed her.

  I could see no very strong difference between this brother and sister and others I had known — except that they were perhaps unusually affectionate.

  It was a big, handsome place. The front windows faced the great river, the rear ones opened on a most unexpected scene of loveliness. A big sheltered garden, every wall-space surrounding it a joy to the eye — rich masses of climbing vines, a few trees, a quiet fountain, beautiful stone seats and winding walks, flowers in profusion, and birds singing.

  “We used to have only the song of the tomcat in my time. Have you taught the cat to lie down with the canary — or killed him?”

  “There are no animals kept in cities any more — except the birds — and they come and

  “Mostly sparrows, I suppose?”

  “No; the sparrow went with the horse,” Owen replied. “And the mouse, the fly and the croton bug went with the kitchen.”

  I turned with a gesture of despair.

  “No homes left?”

  “I didn’t say ‘home’ — I said ‘kitchen.’

  Brace up, old man! We still eat — and better food than you ever dreamed of in your hungriest youth.”

  “That’s a long story,” Nellie here suggested. “We mustn’t crowd him. Let’s get washed and rested a bit, and have some of that food you’re boasting of.”

  They gave me a room with a river window, and I looked out at the broad current, changed only in its lovely clearness, and at the changeless Palisades.

  Changeless? I started, and seized the traveling glass still on the strap.

  The high cliffs reached away to the northward, still wooded, though sprinkled with buildings; but the more broken section opposite the city was a picture of startling beauty.

  The water front was green-parked, white-piered, rimmed with palaces, and the broken slopes terraced and garlanded in rich foliage. White cottages and larger buildings climbed and nestled along the sunny slopes as on the cliffs at Capri. It was a place one would go far to see.

  I dropped my eyes to the nearer shore.

  Again the park, the boulevard, the gracious outlines of fine architecture.

  It was beautiful — undeniably beautiful — but a strange world to me. I felt like one at a play. A plain, ordinary American landscape ought not to look like a theatre curtain!

  Chapter 4.

  THEY called me to supper. “Most of us have our heartiest meal in the middle of the day,” my sister said.

  “The average man, Victim of Copious Instruction,” added my brother-in-law, “does his work in the morning; the two hours that he has to, or the four that he usually puts in. Eight to twelve, or nine to one — that is the working day for everybody. Then home, rest, a bath maybe, and then — allow me to help you to some of our Improvements!”

  I was hungry, and this simple meal looked and smelled most appetizing. There was in particular a large shining covered dish, which, being opened, gave forth so savory a steam as fairly to make my mouth water. A crisp and toothsome bread was by my plate; a hot drink, which they laughingly refused to name, proved most agreeable; a suave, cool salad followed; fruits, some of which were new to me, and most delicate little cakes, closed the meal.

  They would not tell me a thing, only saying “Have some more!” and I did. Not till I had eaten, with continuous delight, three helpings from the large dish did I notice that it stood alone, so to speak.

  Nellie followed my eye with her usual prompt intelligence. “Yes,” she said, “this is all. But we can send for other things in the twinkling of an eye; what would you like?”

  I leaned back in my chair and looked at her reproachfully. “I would like some of that salad — not very much, please! And some of those Burbankian products yonder, and one particular brown little cake — if I can hold it.”

  Nellie smiled demurely. “Oh!” she mildly remarked, “I thought for the moment that our little supper seemed scant to you.”

  I glared at her, retorting, “Now I will not utter the grateful praises that were rising to my lips. I will even try to look critical and dissatisfied.” And I did, but they all laughed.

  “It’s no manner of use, Uncle John,” cried my pretty niece; “we saw
you eat it.”

  “‘It’ indeed!” I protested. “What is this undeniably easy-to-take concoction you have stuffed me with?”

  “My esteemed new brother,” Owen answered, “we have been considering your case in conclave assembled, and we think it is wiser to feed you for awhile and demand by all the rites of hospitality that you eat what is set before you and ask no questions for conscience sake. When you begin to pine, to lose your appetite, to look wan and hollow-eyed, then we may reconsider. Meanwhile we will tell you everything you want to know about food in general, and even some particulars — present dishes always excepted.”

  “I will now produce information,” began Hallie, “my office being that of Food Inspector.”

  “Her main purpose in bringing you here, Uncle, was to give you food and then talk about it,” said Jerrold solemnly. Hallie only made a face at him, and went on:

  “We have a magnificent system of production and distribution,” she explained, “with a decreasing use of animal foods.”

  “Was this a vegetarian meal?” I asked in a hollow voice.

  “Mostly; but you shall have meat when you want it — better meat than you used to get, too.”

  “Cold Storage Meat?”

  “Oh, no; that’s long since stopped. The way we manage about meat is this: A proper proportion of edible animals are raised under good conditions — nice, healthy, happy beasts; killed so that they don’t know it! — and never kept beyond a certain time limit.

  “You see,” she paused, looking for the moment like her mother, “the whole food business is changed — you don’t realize.”

  “Go ahead and tell me — tell me all — my life at present is that of Rollo, I perceive, and I am most complacent after this meal.”

  “Uncle, I rejoice in your discovery, I do indeed. You are an uncle after my own heart,” said Jerrold.

  So my fair niece, looking like any other charming girl in a pretty evening frock, began to expound her specialty. Her mother begged to interrupt for the moment. “Let me recall to him things as they were — which you hardly know, you happy child. .Don’t forget, John, that when we were young we did not know what good food was.”

  I started to protest, but she shook her finger at me.

  “No, we didn’t, my dear boy. We knew ‘what we liked,’ as the people said at the picture show; but that did not make it good — good in itself or good for us. The world was ill-fed. Most of the food was below par; a good deal was injurious, some absolutely poison. People sold poison for food in 1910, don’t forget that! You may remember the row that was beginning to be made about it.”

  I admitted recalling something of the sort, though it had not particularly interested me at the time.

  “Well, that row went on — and gained in force. The women woke up.”

  “If you have said that once since we met, my dear sister, you’ve said it forty times. I wish you would make a parenthesis in these food discussions and tell me how, when and why the women woke up.”

  Nellie looked a little dashed, and Owen laughed outright.

  “You stand up for your rights, John!” he said, rising and slapping me on the shoulder. “Let’s go in the other room and settle down for a chin — it’s our fate.”

  “Hold him till he sees our housekeeping,” said Jerrold. I stood watching, while they rapidly placed our dishes — which I now noticed were very few — in a neat square case which stood on a side table. Everything went in out of sight; paper napkins from the same receptacle wiped the shining table; and then a smooth-running dumbwaiter took it from our sight.

  “This is housework,” said Nellie, mischievously.

  “I refuse to be impressed. Come back to our muttons,” I insisted. “You can tell me about your domestic sleight-of-hand in due season.”

  So we lounged in the large and pleasant parlor, the broad river before us, rimmed with starry lamps, sparkling everywhere with the lights of tiny pleasure craft, and occasionally the blaze and wash of larger boats. I had a sense of pleasant well-being. I had eaten heartily, very heartily, yet was not oppressed. My new-found family pleased me well. The quiet room was beautiful in color and proportion, and as my eyes wandered idly over it I noted how few in number and how harmonious were its contents giving a sense of peace and spaciousness.

  The air was sweet — I did not notice then, as I did later, that the whole city was sweet-aired now; at least by comparison with what cities used to be. From somewhere came the sound of soft music, grateful to the ear. I stretched myself luxuriously with:

  “Now, then, Nellie — let her go— ‘the women woke up.’”

  “Some women were waking up tremendously, before you left, John Robertson, only I dare say you never noticed it. They just kept on, faster and faster, till they all did — about all. There are some Dodos left, even yet, but they don’t count — discredited grandmothers!”

  “And, being awake?” I gently suggested.

  “And being awake, they” She paused for an instant, seeking an expression, and Jerrold’s smooth bass voice put in, “They saw their duty and they did it.”

  “Exactly,” his mother agreed, with a proudly loving glance at him; “that’s just what they did! And in regard to the food business, they recognized at last that it was their duty to feed the world — and that it was miserably done! So they took hold.”

  “Now, mother, this is my specialty,” Hallie interposed.

  “When a person can only talk about one thing, why oppose them?” murmured Jerrold. But she quite ignored him, and re — opened her discussion.

  “We — that is, most of the women and some of the men — began to seriously study the food question, both from a hygienic and an economic standpoint. I can’t tell you that thirty years’ work in a minute, Uncle John, but here’s the way we manage it now: We have learned very definitely what people ought not to eat, and it is not only a punishable, but a punished offense to sell improper food stuffs.”

  “How are the people to know?” I ventured.

  “The people are not required to know everything. All the food is watched and tested by specialists; what goes into the market is good — all of it.”

  “By impeccable angelic specialists — like my niece?”

  She shook her head at me. “If they were not, the purchaser would spot them at once. You see, our food supply is not at the mercy of the millions of ignorant housewives any more. Food is bought and prepared by people who know how — and they have all the means — and knowledge — for expert tests.”

  “And if the purchaser too was humanly fallible?”

  She cast a pitying glance on me, and her father took the floor for a moment.

  “You see, John, in the old time the dealers were mostly poor, and sold cheap and bad stuff to make a little money. The buyers were mostly poor, and had to buy the cheap and nasty stuff. Even large manufacturers were under pressure, and had to cheat to make a profit — or thought they had to. Then when we got to inspectors and such like they were under the harrow, too, and were by no means impeccable. Our big change is this: Nobody is poor now.”

  “I hear you say that,” I answered, “but I can’t seem to get it through my head. Have you really divided all the property?”

  “John Robertson, I’m ashamed of you!” cried Nellie. “Even in 1910 people knew better than that — people who knew anything!”

  “That wasn’t necessary,” said Owen, “nor desirable. What we have done is this: First, we have raised the productive capacity of the population; second, we have secured their right to our natural resources; third, we have learned to administer business without waste. The wealth of the world grows enormously. It is not what you call ‘equally distributed,’ but every one has enough. There is no economic danger any more; there is economic peace.”

  “And economic freedom?” asked I sharply.

  “And economic freedom. People choose the work they like best, and work — freely, more than they have to.”

  I pondered on this. “A
h, but they have to — labor is compulsory.”

  Owen grinned. “Yes, labor is compulsory — always was. It is compulsory on everyone now. We used to have two sets who wouldn’t work — paupers and the idle rich; no such classes left — all busy.”

  “But, the freedom of the individual”

  I persisted.

  “Come, come, brother; society always played hob with the freedom of the individuals whenever it saw fit. It killed, imprisoned, fined; it had compulsory laws and regulations; it required people to wear clothes and furnished no clothes for them to wear. If society has a right to take human life, why has it not a right to improve it? No, my dear man,” continued Owen (he was evidently launched on his specialty now) “society is not somebody else domineering over us! Society is us — taking care of ourselves.”

  I took no exception to this, and he began again. “Society, in our young days, was in a state of auto-intoxication. It generated its own poisons, and absorbed them in peaceful, slow suicide. To think! — it seems impossible now — to think of allowing anybody to sell bad food!”

  “That wasn’t the only bad thing they sold” I suggested.

  “No; unfortunately. Why, look here—” Owen slid a glass panel in the wall and took out a book.

  “That’s clever,” I remarked approvingly, “Bookcases built in!”

  “Yes, they are everywhere now,” said Nellie. Books — a few of them — are common human necessities. Every home, every room almost, has these little dust-tight, insect-proof wall cases. Concrete construction has helped very much in all such mat — ters.”

  Owen had found his place, and now poured upon me a concentrated list of the adulterated materials deteriorating the world in that period so slightingly referred to as “my day.” I noticed with gratitude that Owen said “When we were young!”

  “You never were sure of getting anything pure,” he said scornfully, “no matter what you paid for it. How we submitted to such rank outrage for so long I cannot imagine I This was taken up very definitely some twenty years ago, by the women mostly.”